Freedom's Toll
by Zalphon
Summary: Naleth Vitaus is depressed, cynical and maybe a little nihilistic. When he enters Sgrub and is finally free of the bitter hemospectrum-he develops something he hasn't had in years. Hope. However-everything changes when he discovers he's fighting for his life. Naleth is forced to make decisions he never thought would be his to make...
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

Sweat was beading on my forehead as I was jerked into the world of consciousness. My muscles were tight and my breathing was faster than normal. It was another night of the same, recurring dream. It was just another night of watching myself die at the heels of the Empress because I spoke out against the Hemospectrum.

I struggled to gain my balance as I pulled myself out of the recuperacoon. Sopor Slime was supposed to sate those violent dreams, but it never did. It was always seeing myself die. Why was it always about dying?

I wiped the Sopor away from my eyes and looked out into my hive. It was the place I had come to call home. Empty Faygo bottles and the remnants of a mostly-eaten meal were littered on my desk by my laptop. Scattered throughout the rest of my hive were novels.

My lungs inhaled deeply and then let out an exhausted sigh. I quickly dressed myself in my signature attire: a plain, black tee-shirt, a black zip-hoodie and jeans. The clothes were mostly clean. It had been a few days since they had been washed, but that didn't bother me.

I was forcing myself towards the laptop in my quest to continue writing my novel. The computer whirred as the screen came to life before me. And as soon as it came to life, there was a quick pop-up.

"[pseudoAuxillatrix] has begun trolling you. Would you like to respond: Y/N?" I sat there for a moment and had to ponder if I wanted to talk to her. She always went in-depth about my problems—about my psychological issues. Ansara meant well, but it was a bit annoying.

I pressed "Y" and watched the chatroom pop up. As quickly as it appeared, there was a line of bright, teal text waiting to be responded to. She was always so quick to probe me and see what was wrong. While it's a good quality in a moirail, it did get tedious after a while.

"PA: You're Up Quite Early, Naleth? Any Particular Reason As To Why?"

There were a lot of ways to respond to Ansara and I had to carefully select mine. She was always on the lookout for signs of psychological illness in me and maybe I really was depressed like she said. Ansara was always one to tell me to talk about my problems, but I never felt the need to. I knew I was fucked up and I was okay with that.

"GM: Another nightmare, but I'll be fine," I typed. "Why are you up?"

There was a pause before she responded. Then her bright, teal text really seemed to have a new vibrancy in comparison to my plain, black text. "PA: I'm Reading About Sgrub And It Looks Fun. We Could Get All Of Our Friends To Play With Us!" I smiled smugly to myself. This was one of the few times I got to evade her sick need to help me and I was glad to have evaded it.

"GM: That game that the anonymous hacker made? I don't know—what if it has a virus?"

"PA: Highly Unlikely With As Many Fans There Are. I'm Going To Torrent The Server And Client Copies, Then I'll Send Them To You. Okay?"

"GM: Yeah—cool, Ansara. Who else have you told about this plan?"

"PA: Just A Few People."

"GM: Who are a few people?"

"PA: Right Now? I've Told Trahen, Mythin And Maytha."

I growled at the thought of dealing with Mythin. He was an idiot of the highest caliber. Mythin was the only person I had ever known to actually lose his recuperacoon. For three days, we had to help him find it.

"GM: I see—and you want us all to play together?"

"PA: That Was The Plan. Do You Propose A Better One?"

"GM: Not that I can think of at the moment. Give me some time and I'll come up with a new one."

"PA: Whatever You Say, Naleth. Anyways, I Have Stuff To Do."

"GM: Talk to you later, Ansara."

"[pseudoAuxillatrix] has ceased trolling you," appeared in bold, black text. What was this Sgrub game anyways? It was probably just some RPG like the other games Ansara got excited about. Even if it was just a shitty one, I had an obligation. She was my moirail and I owed her at least some of my time.

I closed Trollian and turned my chair around. "Hey Kel?" I shouted. "Are you skulking around somewhere?" There was no response from my lusus. Kel seldom stayed at the hive anyway, but he was always back when I needed him. But rarely was he around when I just wanted to talk to him.

Kel was gone and I was left with the familiar loneliness I had come to know. I would be fine, but that didn't change that sometimes I just wanted to talk with him. With a gentle kick, my chair spun around and I typed into Hemera, "Sgrub Reviews". There was something to this game and I wanted to find out.


	2. Chapter One: Portal

**Chapter One: Portal**

For at least an hour, I sat there just browsing reviews on Sgrub. None of them were of any use beyond saying something to the effect of: "Best game ever!" The problem with these reviews is that they lacked any substance. None of them glossed over what made the game so good, only that it was the "Best game ever!"

With an annoyed sigh, I was on the verge of closing Hemera when I got a pop-up: "[pseudoAuxillatrix] has begun trolling you. Would you like to respond: Y/N?" With a quick movement of my finger, the chatbox popped up.

"PA: So Everyone Is Excited For Sgrub! You're Going To Be My Server And Cathos' Client!" Ansara was excited and when that happened, she forgot to explain to me what entirely was going on. It was rather annoying, but it was something I had come to accept.

"GM: Ansara? Explain what you mean by this "Server" and "Client" business."

"PA: In Sgrub, We'll Have These Things That We Need To Place. Three Things To Be Exact: A Cruxtruder, A Punch Designix, A Totem Lathe And An Alchemiter. The Server Player Has To Place Them For The Client Player"

I rested my face in the palm of my hand and growled in annoyance. Ansara didn't quite understand that unlike her, I hadn't read any walkthroughs. It took a few breaths before I could respond. However, I eventually did muster the inner strength to not scream at her over text.

"GM: What do these things do?"

"PA: Simple: They Are Used To Make Items."

"GM: Make Items?"

"PA: Every Walkthrough I Have Read Says We'll Need To Make Items For Our Strife Specibus And Extra Computers. Just Go To The Link I'm Sending You And Download Both Versions Of The Game. Sgrub"

"[pseudoAuxillatrix] has ceased trolling you," appeared in the same text it did last time I saw it. It was a relief in a way. My anger was waiting to into my text and that would've upset her. Or perhaps something far worse—she may have psychoanalyzed me.

My cursor moved to the link in the chatbox and pressed down on the mouse. In a new tab, a website appeared. Big, violet letters seemed to fade in from the black background. When they finished their entrance, I noticed the words: "Sgrub Downloader". I clicked on it and had to press "Allow This Once".

The Downloader began and I looked down at it: "8.28MB/second". It was a fast download and would probably be done in a little under an hour. With a kick of my feet, I went rolling out from under my desk.

A squeaky bark could be heard and I turned around to see Kel lying down on the couch. His ebon hair would've blended in perfectly if the couch were not in such disarray with holes throughout. My lusus was a fox and he always made a game of taking the entire couch.

"Come on, Kel," I muttered. "Gimme some room to sit down."

He looked up at me with his silvery eyes and I could tell exactly what he was thinking. Kel was like an open book when he wanted to be; this was one of those times. He was getting amusement out of taking the entire couch and he wanted me to play his game. I was about to grab him, but he pounced onto me and held on by my shoulders.

"Really?" I asked while I staggered about. "You're going to do this?" His head bobbed in the same way it always did—a quick dip followed by an even quicker rise back to the normal position. I swore under my breath as I lowered myself to the couch. Kel quickly made his way to the other side and set one of his paws on me. He knew I wasn't in the mood, so he just quit. Kel was always good about knowing when I was in the mood to play and when was not a good time.

I gently scratched him on the top of his head. His soft hair brushed against my fingers and it was nice. It was always nice to just relaxing with Kel, because no matter what—we always had each other. That was the great thing about lusii, you looked after them and vice-verse.

My fingers moved from his head to the remote and then my thumb to the big, red power button. A moment later, my TV was illuminated with an episode of "Squiddles". The vibrant colors of the dancing jellyfish-like creatures were entertaining for wrigglers and it 'supposedly' had a much deeper plot. It just didn't seem interesting—it was a show made for wrigglers and peoples' infatuation with it was abnormal.

After staring at guide for a few minutes, the TV changed from "Squiddles" to "A Really Low-Budget Movie About A Troll Who Has Serious Lusus Issues And Mutilates Other Trolls Because Of It." It was another low-budget horror flick, but it would pass the time while I waited for Sgrub.

The time passed slowly as I watched this atrocity of a movie. The simplistic plot led to the main character being the killer; it was as if they were trying to make it obvious that they were the psychopath. Then they tried to play it off as some big twist. I looked at Kel who had been quietly sleeping and nodded. He was comfortable and that was something I didn't want to disturb.

I looked over to my computer to see a pop-up. "gnosticSlayer has begun trolling you. Would you like to respond: Y/N?"

My finger hovered over the key to confirm I wished to speak to him. Cathos was always an interesting fellow to talk to and it typically meant dealing with his nihilistic, but philosophical attitude. However, it wouldn't have surprised me to discover that he had trouble turning away a bottle of alcohol.

"GS: are you there?" His rust-red text was quite dull, but visible against the white background. It was his way of saying that he was okay with who he was—even if he was the lowest on the Hemospectrum.

"GM: Yeah, what do you need?"

"GS: are you done DLing?"

"GM: Umm…let me check." I had to look down at my downloader and it was complete. When I clicked on it, a message popped up; "Sgrub Server Installed; Sgrub Client Installed." I pressed the small "X" in the top-right and clicked on Pesterchum again.

"GM: Yeah, I'm done with my downloads."

"GS: cool i'll do the stuff i have to do"

"GM: What. Do. You. Mean?"

I sat there waiting for him to respond. It was typical of Cathos to randomly AFK in the middle of conversations. No matter how much I tried to get him to stay (or to use grammar), it was a pointless endeavor.

My concentration on the screen was broken when I heard the sound of crashing above me. Kel lifted his head, clearly awoken from his sleep and stared into my eyes. He was fighting the urge to dart up the stairs to investigate. "Come on," I muttered. "Let's go."

I briskly walked up the stairs to the upper level of my hive and looked through the rooms. None of the doors were open and the crashing had stopped, but a violent scraping was occurring now from my study. Slowly I pushed open the door to see my once barren study dominated by machinery.

My desk was smashed beneath a large rectangular one with a cylinder protruding from it. On it was a clock with a blinking series of numbers. At first it was: "1:32:13" and then after a blink it was "1:32:12". There were a few other machines, but none of them were near as intrusive upon my study as that one.

My fascination was abruptly intruded on by another crashing noise coming from my storage room for all my useless knick-knacks. I dashed over to see what was happening in there and it wasn't surprising to see a new piece of technology surrounded by broken knick-knacks and in front of a hole in my wall.

It was a rectangle with a few closed pipes coming from it and a nearly flat cylinder on top of it. Kel and I looked at each other for a few moments. "I've got to tell Cathos about all of this," I mumbled in awe. "Maybe he'll know what to do."

Every step down my stairs was difficult. My mind was in a thousand places at once. What did that timer mean? How did all this technology come into my hive? And more importantly, what did it all do?

It felt like it took me a sweep to finally reach the bottom of my stairs, but I knew it wasn't that long. It took a few moments of mustering confidence before I could finally walk over to my laptop. I needed to explain to Cathos what had just happened, hopefully without sounding like I had gone completely crazy.

"GS: did you get the stuff?"

"GM: What do you mean—did I get the stuff?"

"GS: i set down the stuff you need for sgrub"

"GM: You're kidding me, right?"

"GS: nope." When I read the words, I couldn't think of what to say. It was asinine, but it wasn't like anything else made sense. My teeth gritted as I typed my response.

"GM: You couldn't have given me warning?"

"GS: sorry didn't cross my mind"

I closed the chatbox. I had to close it or else I would've screamed at him over text. While he was trying to be helpful, he did destroy my study and my knick-knacks. It was unlikely he even cared if I talked to him anyway. Cathos was just one of those guys who was happy with or without companionship.

I opened up my IM List and clicked on [pseudoAuxillatrix]. It was a short while before the chatbox popped up. I had all this random technology and she seemed to know what to do. This seemed to be something she really excelled at, so I figured I'd ask her.

"GM: What's with all this weird machinery, Ansara?"

"PA: You Use It All In The Medium. Well Most Of It, You'll Need To Open The Cruxtruder To Get Your Kernelsprite." Once again, she was several steps ahead of me. I had no idea what "The Medium" or any of that was.

"GM: Okay…what's the Medium? Or a Cruxtruder? Or a Kernelsprite?"

"PA: Well, I'm Not Sure What Most Of Those Are. But The Cruxtruder Is The Machine With Clocks And The Kernelsprite Is Like A Guide You Combine With Your Lusus"

"GM: What? What do you mean 'combine with your lusus'?"

"PA: Just Get A Hammer And Knock The Top Off Of The Cruxtruder. Then It Should Go To Kel And Then He Supposedly Gets A Lot Cooler And Can Talk." The thought of being able to actually talk to Kel was kind of neat, even if a little crazy. I had always imagined about holding conversation with him, even if we could mostly communicate our emotions through looks anyway.

"GM: Okay—one sec."

"PA: Wait! When You Knock The Top Off, Select The Stack Sylladex And Be Careful With What Strife Specibus You Choose—It Might Be A While Before You Find A New One."

"GM: What's a Strife Specibus?"

"PA: The Type Of Weapon You Use. You Get A Free Starter If You Don't Have One."

"GM: Cool. What kind of weapon do you recommend?"

"PA: They're All Supposed To Be Balanced. Go With Whatever Feels Right?" That wasn't very helpful and she knew it. But there wasn't much I could say to her that would get her to actually tell me her thoughts. She was just one of those people who truly favored letting the rest of us figure stuff out on our own.

"GM: You're not being very helpful, but okay. I'll just look when I get to it."

"PA: Listen, Just Go Knock It Off. It Shouldn't Be So Hard—Just Grab Rubble Or Something."

"GM: Okay. Be right back."

When I pushed myself out from under my desk, I couldn't help but think about what the point of all this was. What was this game? Could it even be called that? It was hard, but I did manage to get out of my chair to go "begin" the game.

With several footsteps, I began my ascent to the upper level. It took several minutes to rise the stairs—likely due to the fact that every few steps I stopped to ponder if I was really going to do this. Why was I doing all of this anyway? My hive had two gargantuan holes in it and two of my rooms were in ruin, because of what…a game?

I sighed when I finished my ascent and wandered into the room with the machine with clocks. Several fist-sized chunks of my hive were in front of the strange machine. It was strange to see my hive broken—incomplete. Of all the things in my chaotic life, my hive and Kel were really the only things that had always been there. Ansara had been my friend since I was around four sweeps, but we didn't really start talking often until I was six sweeps.

The Hive was always just—sanctuary and now my sanctuary was incomplete. Granted, the damage was reparable—it just didn't feel right. I let out a soft sigh and snatched up one of the pieces of my hive. It was a dark-grey material that had little sheen. The dull chunk of my hive felt abnormally heavy as I lifted it from the ground, much heavier than it should have been.

I pulled my arm back and slammed it towards the top of the Cruxtruder. When the chunk of my hive collided against the lid, it barely moved an inch—if that. I tried one more time and it fell off from the force of the blow. A few moments passed before a small, colorless sphere popped out.

Was this the sprite? At least every second, it was flash in bright light and then it would darken. It was like a strobe light—a very annoying strobe light. If this was what I was supposed to combine Kel with, it simply wouldn't happen. I didn't need a lusus that caused seizures.

The descent was slow to the bottom of my hive. It was only made worse by the constant flashing of the "sprite" if that's what it could be called. At the end of the descent, I walked towards my computer and began an annoyed message to pseudoAuxillatrix.

"GM: What the fuck is this strobe light that I'm cursed with?"

"PA: Oh. That's Your Kernelsprite!"

"GM: Do you mean I'm supposed to combine it with Kel?"

"PA: Yeah. That'll Make Him Much Better."

"PA: It Should Gravitate Towards Kel Naturally. If He's Dead Or Doomed, That Is."

"GM: …Why would my lusus be dead or doomed?"

"PA: I Don't Know. My Kernelsprite Will Probably Just Go To Thanax, But He Is An Old Lusus."

"GM: Will it go if my lusus is still alive?"

Just as I pressed "Enter", the room flooded with bright, white light; it was as if the strobe-light had been supercharged. I couldn't see for a few moments after that, regardless of how many times I blinked. It was always the same bright, white light.

For a few minutes, I sat there—completely unable to see. However, my vision slowly returned as I heard the comforting words of a stranger. "Don't worry, Naleth," he said. "Everything will be alright." The tone in the voice was a bit deeper than the normal tone and had a sagely vibe to it.

When I looked back to the speaker, it was quite—odd. It was Kel's head with an olive-green outline. There was no color to it, beyond his hair and eye color being reversed. "Kel?" I asked in shock. "Is it…you?"

"Sort of," he explained. "Being your sprite gives me a lot of knowledge about Sgrub and the Medium, but I can't tell you much until the Reckoning."

"What's the Reckoning?"

"Don't worry—I'll tell you how to survive it. It'll be when we go to the Medium."

"What do you mean you'll tell me how to survive it? And what's the Medium that everyone keeps talking about?"

"Retrieve the Cruxite Dowel from the Cruxtruder. Afterwards, you must retrieve the Pre-Punched Card from the Punch Designex. Then put the Dowel into the Totem Lathe to make a totem for the Alchemiter to make your portal to the Medium."

"Wait. I need to do all that, just to get to the Medium?"

Kelsprite just bobbed his head (or in his case, his entire body) to confirm what I had just asked. What was this game? And was Kel playing another trick on me? It wouldn't surprise me from him, but he seemed serious.

I didn't say anything to him, but I looked at the screen and had to think. There was so much going on and I had nod

"PA: You There?"

"GM: Yeah—what do you need?"

"PA: Place My Stuff! I Want To Get My Stuff!"

"GM: Yeah, okay. Head's up—you don't get your Strife Specibus or Sylladex when you open the Cruxtruder. Maybe when we enter the Medium, we'll get our Strife Specibus and Sylladex."

"PA: I Can't Wait."

I just nodded and opened up Sgrub – Server Edition. At the top were four cards with pictures of the machines I had. When I moused over them, it brought up their name and function which was kind of nice. With the overhead view of Ansara's hive, I struggled to place them in the hive. However—I was as bad as Cathos when it came to placement. Regardless of how hard I tried, I still broke a wall in her hive (even if I got them all in one room).

"PA: There's A Hole In My Hive…"

"GM: Yeah, it's not easy… I'm sorry."

"PA: Don't Worry. Once We Enter The Medium It Won't Matter Anyways."

Yeah. That was a great outlook I guess, but it wasn't particularly comforting. Did our lives truly mean nothing once we entered the Medium? And more importantly, what was in the Medium? I sat there for several minutes just thinking about that. About what we were entering and what was going to happen.

When my thoughts stopped wandering, I stood up and walked back up to my hive. Kelsprite followed close behind and I think we both knew what I was going to do. I was about to enter the Medium, regardless of how much the thought of leaving everything behind scared me.

As soon as I reached the top of the stairs, I looked at Kelsprite who led me to the device that the original Kernelsprite and bulging out of the open tube was a semi-transparent black cylinder. It wasn't very long in length or circumference, but I had a theory it was what I needed. I grabbed it with my right hand and shoved it into the protection of my left arm.

The Punch Designix had a code put in already on the screen. I just decided to press the "Enter" key and out of the top came a small card. Throughout the card were small, rectangular holes. I didn't actually expect the cards to be "punched". With my free hand, I shoved the card into my front-right card.

Upon reaching the Totem Lathe, I gently placed the Dowel to be carved. Right after, I dug the pre-punched card out of my pocket and stuck it into the slot. It was sucked in by the machine and I watched it begin to cut with laser-precision. Eventually it ended up looking like a finely carved candle-stick.

With the Totem in hand, I made my way to the Alchemiter; I was ready to enter the Medium. It was difficult to avoid my miniatures which had been thrown in disarray. I knew they wouldn't mean much, but they were things I had come to enjoy looking at. When the Totem clicked into the Alchemiter, I walked around to the front and pressed the "Alchemitize Button"

On top of the round platform appeared a recuperacoon—made entirely of the same material as the Cruxite Dowel. It was strange to look at and slowly I got closer. Lying inside was a sleeping troll made entirely of the same material. When I touched the Recuperacoon, his eyes seemed to open and the world around me seemed to change.


End file.
